In the Gundam X universe, earth has been devastated by a massive colony drop, killing off most of the population. Under 100 Million people are alive on the earth's surface, just barely scraping out an existence.

In the process, the previous year scheme is discarded, bringing forth another age in the Gundam Universe, A.W. or After War. Gundam X occurs in A.W. 0015

Slowly though, earth's remains are coalescing, attempting to create a new earth government that begins slowly taking over the various regions of the planet.

Jamil Neet, captain of the Frieden, a vulture ship, rescues Tifa Adil, a fairly powerful Newtype (the existence of the newtype in Gundam X makes it the only alternate universe story to feature newtypes), in an attempt to both make up for his past, and bring a new future to the people of earth.

Early on, Garoad Ran meets up with the crew, hired to "rescue" Tifa, who is frightened by the men whom hired Garoad. In their flight, Tifa leads them to the Gundam X, one of the few relics of its type from the Great War.

Other variants on the Gundam design, of which there were 3 main types in the Great war, include the Air Master, a form-changing airborne Gundam that changes into something resembling an F-16, and a ground based machine known as the Leopard. Many of the gundam inherited designs from W, most notably the Leopard, which bares heavy resemblance to Heavyarms.

The show starts off with a decent plot, but then shifts to a very episodic format which really detracts from the show, only really drawing in the threads of the story fairly close to the end, finishing with a big crash (and a bunch of "oh come on, the world's devastated and they can do THAT?"). My best estimates put the re-assignment of the writers about 15 episodes before its end, and their animation budget was slowly trimmed, bringing the show to a rather odd (but quite final) ending at 39 episodes.

Another interesting explanation for the poor performance of the series was the excessive copying and homage to the original Mobile Suit Gundam done throughout the series. Bits and peices of Char Aznable, Amuro Rei, and a number of other series characters were copied into the various X crew (hell even the Frieden is almost a total rip of the original ship).